


Family Is What You Make Of It

by Mattagross



Series: Tachibana Hibiki Needs Therapy (And A Good Support Network) [3]
Category: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Genre: Big Sister? Sort of??? Maria Cadenzavna Eve, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Maria Cadenzavna Eve is a Good Friend, No Beta We Die Like Kanade, Tachibana Hibiki Needs Therapy, Tachibana Hibiki Needs a Hug, mentions of abuse, mentions of physical/psychological abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26365639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mattagross/pseuds/Mattagross
Summary: Hibiki knew her fists could only solve simple problems for longer than she let on.
Relationships: Maria Cadenzavna Eve & Tachibana Hibiki
Series: Tachibana Hibiki Needs Therapy (And A Good Support Network) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1845580
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	Family Is What You Make Of It

**Author's Note:**

> HI HELLO I DID NOT INTEND FOR THIS TO TAKE *THIS LONG*
> 
> I had a few ideas bouncing around for this one, and they'll be done *eventually* as most likely one-shots but this one just felt like the best for This particular series.
> 
> So a trigger warning:  
> \- Mentions of psychological and physical abuse
> 
> I know its in the tags but I'm being 100% sure that no one reads something they don't want to read.
> 
> With that, please enjoy, and thank you for taking the time out to read this.

“Hey mom. Its Hibiki – hope you and grandma are doing okay. We haven’t talked as much as lately, so I’ve been a little worried – but its okay! You two are probably busy and I’ve been swamped with work ‘cause of my last year at Lydian… I know… he’s been visiting a lot lately. I hope that’s been going well – he hasn’t been in touch with me very much, but at least he’s making it up to you!

“Anyway, I’ll… I’ll let you go now. I love you, mom. Bye.”

Hanging up the phone, Hibiki sighed. It wasn’t surprising that she hadn’t been able to get through to her mom at all; this was the third time _this week_ that her call went straight to voicemail.

For as many things as she could fix with her fists, a strained, nearly broken family wasn’t something she was quite able to deal with. It all started the day of the Zwei Wing concert and just… got worse over time; first her dad drinking, then the beatings, then the leaving… and then the _void_ that just suddenly appeared between herself and her mother. It was all so alien and different and _wrong_ that she wanted it to just…

“…just _what_ , Hibiki?” Hibiki couldn’t help but mumble her thoughts as she navigated the halls of the S.O.N.G. submarine, eventually culminating in collapsing into one of the chairs found in the lounge area. There was no changing the fact that her dad up and abandoned them the way he did, so there was no chance of things just… going back to _normal._ And even if he hadn’t, ‘normal’ was never going to be the same ever again anyway; her father’s presence wouldn’t change the rocks thrown through their windows, the social isolation, the Gungnir shard lodged in her chest for years, the years of depression…

The one thing his presence might have helped with was with mom.

She never dipped into bad parent territory nearly as hard as her dad had, since she never touched alcohol and could barely handle killing a fly, but she was just as bad in other ways.

Before the concert, when Hibiki got home from school, she’d always sit down and listen to her daughter ramble about what she’d learned, people she’d met, how her day was. For a little while afterwards, it was similar, but… colder, more distant, until she just stopped asking entirely. When Hibiki brought up the 4th spider lily she found on her desk and got a distant silence back, she simply stopped talking about it.

Before the concert, their small family would eat dinner together and just… _talk_ about whatever came to mind; new shows that a family member was enjoying, how work or school was, how many cats Hibiki saved from trees recently. But eventually that shifted, and more than once Hibiki would go to bed hungry with a sore face.

After dad left, it was hungry with a sore soul.

More than once she’d overheard her grandma and mom talking about whether an aunt or uncle would ‘take the kid’.

In hindsight, her mom did seem a bit _too_ eager when Hibiki said she wanted to study at Lydian…

Slowly, with those thoughts swirling around her headspace, Hibiki began to drift off into an uneasy sleep.

“—iki. Hibiki.”

There was something lighting shoving Hibiki’s shoulder, and as her eyes slowly cracked open, there was a concerned looking Maria standing over her.

“Maria-san…? What…?” Hibiki was cut off by a sudden yawn as she slowly remembered just what she was doing there. Thought trains like that usually exhausted her, and it was _not_ helping that S.O.N.G. had surprisingly comfy chairs in the lounge area.

“You were asleep, and I thought you’d be more comfortable in your own bed,” Maria lightly told the Gungnir user as she sat up before she continued. “But why _were_ you asleep out here anyway? Is everything alright?”

Another yawn escaped Hibiki as she looked at Maria’s face – a look of genuine concern with the tone to match. It’d been so long to hear and see that during a non-life-threatening situation that it almost didn’t seem real; _there’s no genocidal gremlin child, Maria, you don’t need to look at me like that._

But then Chris’ words echoed in the back of her head.

_“You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”_

And that was true, wasn’t it? She wasn’t alone anymore. Maria was right here, and she was asking if Hibiki was alright.

And right now?

“…no. I’m not alright at all.” And it felt so _refreshing_ to say those words and not receive a jeer or shove or cold indifference in response. In response, Maria sat herself to Hibiki’s side.

“Would you like to talk about it, then?” And her voice was so, so gentle; her years of caring after Kirika and Shirabe were showing. “That is, if you’d like to.”

Hibiki could only give a shaky laugh in response to that – she didn’t want to talk about this at all, if she could. Not to Maria, not to Miku, not to Genjuro, Tsubasa, _anyone_ … but she had to. If not for her own sake, then for the sake of everyone else around her instead.

“I don’t want to… but I have to. You… you know about the Zwei Wing incident.” And already Hibiki could see the cogs turning in the pinkette’s head, trying to be as gentle as possible for her sake.

“Of course.” Maria had opted for the brief response, which gave Hibiki ample time to steel herself in a shuddering breath.

“…after that, my… my home life got bad. People got… _upset_ that I was the only s-s-survivor. People th-threw bricks and r-rocks through our windows, I-I got bullied in school, my life got… _bad._ A-and then my- my dad started drinking, and- and it was just that at first, drinking and occasionally yelling…” (and if Maria didn’t feel for the poor girl already, she was now filled with a motherly _rage_ ) “but then he hit me one day, and then it _kept happening._ I thought things would get better when he left—”

“Please pardon my language, Hibiki, but _fuck him_.” Maria’s tone was downright _venomous. “…_ my apologies, that… that struck quite the nerve with me.”

Nodding her acceptance, Hibiki continued.

“A-as I was saying, I _thought_ things would get better after he left, but… but they _didn’t_ , they just… they just stayed bad in a different way. My mom and grandma just… slowly started getting more and more distant from me. We talked less; we _saw_ each other less, even though we lived in the same house! …I-I heard them talking about having my extended family take me in a few times. I-it never panned out, but…

“…I’ve been trying to call them for _weeks_ now, and I— I always get sent to voicemail. I… I just don’t know what I want out of trying to fix it anymore, Maria…”

Hibiki very quickly found herself in a tight hug courtesy of Maria.

“It’s not on your shoulders to do that, Hibiki.

“You’re the product of a broken home, not unlike myself and my girls. Mom… she wasn’t the kindest person, and while I cannot absolve her of what she did against us, I also cannot bring myself to hate her, either… The idea of being able to ‘fix’ a broken home is not up to the children.”

Maria, by this point, was intently staring at Hibiki – _through_ Hibiki, her hands situated on her shoulders as if to keep her from rocketing off.

“The only way a broken home heals is by _every_ member coming together in an effort to fix it, not one. And if it turns out that the home is beyond repair, you do not haphazardly throw yourself at it in a desperate effort to keep it upright.

“Its okay to move on, Hibiki, and to find a new family.”

Hibiki froze in Maria’s arms.

“I already view you as a part of mine, much the same way Kirika and Shirabe view you as an older sister, even if they don’t explicitly tell you that.

“If your old family has rejected you this wholeheartedly, then allow me to formally invite you to ours.”

Hibiki broke down sobbing in Maria’s arms, a weight having been lifted from her shoulders.

The next time Maria spoke of her girls, she mentioned three names rather than two.

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY
> 
> We are are now at 3/6 *planned* chapters unless another one decides to sneak up on me (or if I continue stuff after the 6th).
> 
> This idea actually got pitched to me by a friend of mine on Twitter so - thanks Kit!
> 
> As always, you can find me on @Mattagross on Twitter.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
